Magnolia Square (48 page)

‘It’s just . . .’ Carrie began, and paused. She’d always been a spirited, jolly person, not much given to thoughtful introspection, but all of a sudden she saw her life
as an outsider might see it, and with a stab of shock she realized how lustreless it had become.

Kate, devotedly in love with a man who loved her with all his heart, mind and soul, glowed with inner happiness no matter how trying her children might be or how tedious her daily chores. But
she, Carrie, didn’t glow, and it wasn’t because she didn’t love Danny, for she did. It was simply that they never seemed to talk to each other properly any more, or go out
together any more. And when they were together at home, there was never an ounce of romance in the air. ‘’Ow about it, gel?’ was about the most romantic Danny ever got, and this
invitation was usually only ever issued when he’d had a couple of pints down The Swan.

‘It’s just that Danny and I never seem to have any fun together any more,’ she finished inadequately, not wanting to sink to utter disloyalty by revealing to Kate how lacking
in the lovemaking department Danny was. ‘The club takes up all his time. He’s round there whether he’s supposed to be or not.’

Kate brewed the tea. She, too, often wished the Embassy Boxing Club to the ends of the earth, for Leon was nearly as bad, acting as a back-up coach at weekends whenever needed, and taking nearly
as much interest in the welfare and progress of some of the youngsters who attended the club as he did of their own children. ‘Why don’t you spend more time down there yourself,
Carrie?’ she suggested, carrying the teapot over to the table. ‘It isn’t as if you have to have a babysitter these days, is it? And it certainly isn’t as if you
wouldn’t be made welcome. After all, the club’s practically a family business.’

‘The club’s Jack’s business,’ Carrie corrected darkly. ‘And quite frankly, Kate, I don’t know that I’m too happy about the way Jack conducts his
business affairs.’

‘Well, Jack’s always sailed a bit close to the wind,’ Kate agreed, wondering if Carrie knew something she didn’t. ‘But the club is all legal and above
board.’

‘I’m not sure all of the—’ Carrie began and was interrupted by the sound of loud, authoritative knocking on Kate’s front door.

‘That’s a policeman’s knock.’ Kate’s face paled. ‘Leon was ferrying a load of combustibles from Gravesend to Rotherhithe this morning!’ With visions of
there having been a terrible accident on the Thames, she ran from the kitchen.

Carrie hesitated for a moment and then followed her. She had been about to share her worry over whether all the fights Jack arranged were strictly legal, but when she saw that Kate was right,
and that her visitor was a policeman, she was glad she hadn’t done so. Kate obviously had other troubles at the moment. With fierce intensity, she hoped they wouldn’t be serious and
that no-one had been hurt.

‘No-one’s been hurt, Madam,’ the policeman was saying to Kate reassuringly, ‘only there’s been a bit of bother at your lad’s school.’

Kate’s shoulders slumped in relief. Luke was always in ‘a bit of bother’ at school, though it was coming to something when his headmaster began sending a policeman round to her
door. It wasn’t as if Luke’s misdemeanours were ever of the bullying kind for, like his father, he didn’t have a vicious bone in his body.

‘Does his headmaster want to see me?’ she asked, wondering if Carrie would keep an eye on Johnny for her. ‘Because if he does, I’ll just get my jacket.’

The policeman’s bushy eyebrows rose so high they disappeared completely beneath his helmet. ‘You’ll have a bit of a journey, Madam, if you don’t mind my saying so.
Somerset is a tidy step even in this day and age.’

‘Somerset?’ Kate stared at him as if he’d taken leave of his senses. ‘You’ve made some kind of a mistake, Constable. It’s my eldest son who is at school in
Somerset, not Luke.’

The policeman sighed. She was a stunning-looking woman but obviously not over-bright in the brainbox department. ‘It isn’t a Luke I’m here about,’ he said, with saintly
patience. He looked down at his notepad. ‘It’s a Master Matthew Harvey, twelve years of age.’

‘Matthew?’ Kate bunked. What kind of trouble could Matthew be in? Matthew was never in trouble. Intelligent, well-spoken, well-mannered, he was as near to perfection as any boy his
age possibly could be. But then, the policeman hadn’t said her son was in trouble. He’d said there had been a bit of bother at the school. Fresh fear seized her. ‘Has there been a
fire?’ she asked urgently. ‘An outbreak of sickness . . . ?’

‘I told you before, Madam, no one’s been hurt and they aren’t sick or injured either. Your lad has, however, absconded. Now, boys being boys, he’ll no doubt be back at
school by tonight, safely tucked up and—’

‘Absconded? You mean Matthew’s run away?’

Kate felt dizzily disorientated. Matthew had been a pupil at St Osyth’s ever since he was seven years old. He liked St Osyth’s. He always did well in exams and excelled at games.
Somehow, somewhere, there had obviously been a mistake.

‘If I could just come in for a moment, Mrs Harvey?’ the policeman asked, aware that he wasn’t, as yet, making much headway.

‘Mrs Emmerson,’ Kate corrected automatically, stepping back to let him in and bumping into Carrie as she did so.

The policeman didn’t move. Emmerson. So there had been a mistake after all. ‘The young lad who’s gone missing is named Harvey,’ he said ponderously. ‘Matthew
Harvey. I thought perhaps he was related to the local Harvey Construction Company family, him attending a nob public school like St Osyth’s. However . . .’ he looked towards Carrie,
resplendent in her street-trading pinny, ‘I see I’ve made a mistake and I’m sorry to have—’

‘You haven’t made a mistake,’ Kate said impatiently, hating, as she always did, having to explain Matthew’s parentage. Without getting involved in the fact that Matthew
had been born illegitimately and that, though adopted by the man she later married, she had come to an arrangement with Matthew’s deceased father’s family that Matthew would be known by
his father’s surname, she said merely, ‘My surname is Emmerson, my son’s surname is Harvey.’ She led the way into the house, her mind racing. Where on earth could Matthew
be? Had he run away because he was being bullied? He’d never complained of being bullied, but perhaps he was amongst a different set of boys now he was no longer in the prep department, but
in the Lower School.

She hurried into the sitting-room, making straight for the fireplace and the many framed photographs on the mantelpiece. ‘This is a recent photograph of Matthew,’ she said, handing
one of them to the policeman, wondering how long it would take Matthew to get to London from Somerset, wondering if he had any money and, if he had, whether it was enough for the train fare home.
‘When did my son go missing?’ she asked, trying to work out how long it would take Matthew, travelling by train, to reach home.

‘I’m not rightly sure, Madam.’ The policeman took the photograph out of its frame and studied it. The boy in question was a good-looking boy, Nordically blond like his mother,
and with her distinctive high cheekbones and generous, full-lipped mouth. He’d certainly be easily recognizable, and that was half the battle in runaway cases. ‘It appears the young
gent wasn’t present at assembly this morning,’ he continued, slipping the photograph into his notebook. ‘So he could have been missing since last night.’

Kate’s eyes flew in horror to Carrie’s. If Matthew had caught a train he would have been home by now. Was he trying to thumb a lift? Dear Lord, was he perhaps even trying to walk
home?

There came the faint sound of the front gate creaking back on its hinges and Kate darted past the policeman and Carrie, running out into the hallway and towards her still half-open front door,
calling out urgently, ‘Matthew? Is that you, Matthew?’

Seconds later the policeman, striding at a dignified pace in her wake, saw her hurtle down the steps fronting her door, not towards a young, white, public schoolboy, but a muscular, middle-aged
man of West Indian origin.

‘What on earth would Matthew be doing here, love?’ the man asked in mystified concern, as, to the policeman’s stupefaction, she ran headlong into his arms.

‘Matthew’s run away from school! He very probably ran away last night!’ Relief that Leon was now with her overwhelmed her and suddenly, ridiculously, she felt like crying.

‘Well, if that’s all, love, it isn’t the end of the world,’ Leon said, concealing the alarm he felt and reassuring her as best he could. He looked towards the policeman.
‘Can you give me some details, Constable?’ he asked, his arm still around Kate. ‘Did my son speak to any of the other boys, saying why he was running away and where he was going
to run to?’

The policeman blinked. His son? Who did the darkie think he was kidding? ‘Now look here . . .’ he began warningly, and was stopped in mid-tracks by a passer-by.

‘I wouldn’t waste time chin-wagging with Mrs Emmerson, Constable!’ Lettie Deakin, Elisha Deakin’s wife, called out with relish. ‘Not when her back garden is nearly
a foot under water! I’d phone for the ruddy Fire Brigade – or the Lifeboat Service!’

Margaret Pemberton is the bestselling author of over thirty novels in many different genres, some of which are contemporary in setting and some historical.

She has served as Chairman of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and has three times served as a committee member of the Crime Writers’ Association. Born in Bradford, she is married
to a Londoner, has five children and two dogs and lives in Whitstable, Kent. Apart from writing, her passions are tango, travel, English history and the English countryside.

Also by Margaret Pemberton

Rendezvous with Danger

The Mystery of Saligo Bay

Vengeance in the Sun

The Guilty Secret

Tapestry of Fear

African Enchantment

Flight to Verechenko

A Many-Splendoured Thing

Moonflower Madness

Forget-Me-Not Bride

Party in Peking

Devil’s Palace

Lion of Languedoc

Yorkshire Rose

The Flower Garden

Silver Shadows, Golden Dreams

Never Leave Me

A Multitude of Sins

White Christmas in Saigon

An Embarrassment of Riches

Zadruga

The Four of Us

The Londoners

Coronation Summer

A Season of Secrets

First published 1996 by Transworld

This electronic edition published 2015 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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ISBN 978-1-4472-3043-4

Copyright © Margaret Pemberton 1996

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